


a crack in the glass

by mollykor



Category: Star Trek
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fuck Canon, Hurt/Comfort, Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:27:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29375670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollykor/pseuds/mollykor
Summary: a prompt from pinterest : character B rushes to character A to find blood dripping down their hand and tries to find the source.
Relationships: Katrina Cornwell/Gabriel Lorca | Mirror Gabriel Lorca, Katrina Cornwell/Original Universe Gabriel Lorca
Kudos: 4





	a crack in the glass

**Author's Note:**

> I have been writing so much recently I don't know why, but honestly not complaining! Heres some more angsty hurt/comfort Lorwell from tumblr/pinterest prompts. Also do tell me if you prefer Kat being hurt and Gabriel comforting or vice versa in the comments, inspire some future works maybe? Like the other works, no beta reader so sorry for any mistakes! Enjoy reading, live long and prosper, etc. etc.

Kat had finally gotten a quiet moment. After all the destruction and chaos of the war, it was nice to have a moment to let herself think, to breathe. She leaned against her desk, resting her weary legs after being upright for nearly 12 hours straight, and sighed in relief. Flexing her toes, she put her elbows down on the tabletop and gazed out of the window, allowing herself to get lost in thought amongst the mountains that were in view. 

The amount of losses they had had over merely the past week were immense, and left them scrambling behind the wreckages, trying to organise themselves into some semblance of a team that have a battle plan. Kat exhaled, thinking about all the death she had seen in the war. There had been people who were merely statistics to her, there had been ones that were close, and her best friend and the most capable captain she knew (apart from Gabriel) were all dead. The bodies piled up, and she pretended that it hadn’t bothered her during meetings, keeping a stoic face and her hands clasped behind her back to stop them trembling. She had a habit of picking her nails, one she’d had to eradicate quickly in the ruthless gaze of the organisation that was Starfleet, and she found it starting to come back to her recently. She began to bite the nail on her thumb, her teeth breaking apart the perfectly manicured oval, and blinked herself back into reality. The tears that had formed in her eyes from keeping them open quickly turned into tears of despair, the full weight of everything finally hitting her after all this time. Kat turned her head away from the window and gazed at her office. The space no longer felt like hers, it belonged to the fearless admiral who had an answer for everything and always held her head up high. Not this shard of a woman, broken in so many ways, her rough edges beginning to show in her tears that streamed down her cheeks.

She was alone. And by god did she feel it. Gabriel was off on the frontlines, captain of the U.S.S Discovery and leading the war effort, making ground-breaking to help them win the war against the Klingons. And Pippa, well, she was gone. The first casualty of war, lost at the Battle at the Binaries. Her mouth shivered into a quivery smile as she remembered doing Pippa’s hair for their graduation. She could never tame it, and ended up putting it into two plaits to keep it out of her face for the photos, how she had giggled at Pippa’s face when she had seen it, her wide eyes and mouth a perfect ‘o’. She had nearly knocked Kat over with the hug she had given her, and she held on tightly that day, thinking that it might’ve been one of the last she could ever give her. The thought that they would soon be assigned to different ships, different areas of space, and they wouldn’t be roommates any more or have time for a quick coffee between classes or at the weekend between study sessions and tests was enough to bring tears to both of their eyes.

Footsteps thundered down the corridor outside her door, and she barely had enough time to wipe away her tears and push herself up off the desk that she was perched on before the door flung open. The man who stood there was dishevelled, his hair unkempt and messy and his long leather coat roughly thrown about his shoulders and torn slightly on the lapel. He was tight-lipped, his face scattered with dirt and the cuts on his nose and eyebrow were fresh. But his eyes, his eyes were wide, yes, but familiar too. In a strange way, the way that someone you hadn’t seen in years would be familiar to you. An expanse of black was rimmed with the most shocking and icy blue she had seen since the lakes on Pahvo from the holovids. The white of his eyes were slightly pinker than usual and streaked with red lightning strikes stemming from the edges, and tears gathered at his waterline that threatened to spill over. It was him. He was back

Gabriel rushed over to Kat and took her into his arms roughly, holding her tightly as if the minute he let go she would disappear. He rested his forehead on the top of her head, inhaling the fading scent of her shampoo folded in amongst the soft tendrils of brown hair that fell softly on her shoulders. He felt his tears drip into her hair, making wet patches in the place of his eyes. Her chest shakily expanded against his and she scrunched her hands up in the familiar feel of the worn leather at his back, balling her hands into fists.

She buried her head further into his chest and made a noise low in her sore throat when he tried to move away, and Gabriel had to pry her off gently to allow him to remove his coat. Kat slumped back against her desk, no longer having anyone to support her and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, shoving away the tears that had built up there unnecessarily. Her eyes lazily followed him around the room as he slipped the tattered jacket off his shoulders and folded it over his arm, walking over to the hanger by the door.

Gabriel’s hand brushed over something sticky and warm. At first, he brushed it off as some stray blood from the battle, a spot he had forgotten to clean perhaps, but upon further inspection, the familiar red sheen of ichor was glazed over the black leather, dripping like watery icing sugar. The most worrying thing was that it was on the back of his coat.

Leather coat abandoned on the floor, dropped in an instant, he sprinted back over to Kat and took her by surprise. Gabriel pulled her hands into his own and brushed his fingers over the palms of Kat’s hands, touching lightly over the patch of blood below her thumb.He followed the trail of colour up past her wrist, and he rolled up her sleeve as it continued to streak up her arm. His eyes widened every millimetre that the stream continued, though it was mostly dried clumps of blood and very little liquid.

Past her elbow, over her bicep, and finally coming to a stop at her shoulder. Kat’s jacket was half off now, and she shrugged her other arm out of it and let it fall onto her chair behind her desk. She felt the chill of the room penetrate her limbs, and she shivered almost on impulse. The heat radiating off of the man in front of her was almost enough to be felt by her, his warm hands gently rubbing her shoulder and she felt a stab of pain. Kat flicked her eyes down to look at her shoulder as best as she could, and she saw the deep cut across the top of her arm, red and bloody. Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion, when had that happened? She hadn’t felt it and from the looks of it, it should’ve been a painful injury. Her arm felt heavy, like someone had put the weight of the galaxy on it, leaving her to hold up the universes.

“When did this happen Kit Kat?” His voice cut through the silence like a knife, low and gravelly from shouting orders non-stop for the past year while they were locked in combat. He called her Kit Kat, an old nickname from the academy when she had told him that she had a cat. The smug grin on his face told her all she needed to know, and from that moment on it had stuck. It had been so long since they had seen one another, had any time to themselves without being haunted by the fighting or the looming threat of death hanging over their shoulders. Gabriel brushed his fingers over her jutting cheekbone, wiping away the residue wetness of her tears that fell. She leaned into his hand, letting the weight of her head be supported by his large callous hands. She was so touch starved, always looking for a quick brush of hands with friends, a hand on her shoulder to show her that she was doing well, but this was war. There was no time for affection when their losses were mounting.

“I- I’m not sure, I didn’t- I don’t think I felt it.” Kat’s eyes flicked around the room as Gabriel applied pressure with his other hand, trying to stem the bleeding completely. He tilted her face to look at him dead in the eyes.

“Kat, tell me the truth.”

The truth was that she had noticed, working an extra shift at the Med Centre she had sliced her arm open on a sharp edge, but she hadn’t had enough time to tend to the wound, so had left it to run. She couldn’t, not when they were so in debt to the war and with all the casualties she had to care for. She had no time, so she simply had put the thought out of her mind, using the pain to help her work faster. Her breathing sped up, shaky inhales and exhales coming faster and faster, yet she felt no air entering her lungs.

Gabriel drew her shaking frame into his arms again, and held her tight as she sobbed and convulsed. Rocking backwards and forwards gently, he smoothed her hair down, pulling his fingers through the tangles that had amassed over her long shift. Kat cried into his chest, stutteringly drawing breaths and her forehead resting against his heart, and she listened to his audible heartbeat to try and calm herself down. She squeezed her eyes shut and focused on the warmth emanating from the body that was wrapped around her’s, and ever so slowly the tide of emotion she felt washed out again.

Her slower, more controlled breathing signalled to Gabriel that it was ok to let go ever so slightly, and he resumed tending to the gash on her shoulder. He retrieved the medkit he knew she kept in the third drawer on the right hand side of her desk, and after about five minutes, the cut was clean and sealed, and Kat was back resting in his arms.

“I’m sorry for ruining your coat.” She mumbled, tired and feeling warm and fuzzy. Kat wanted to sleep, but the nightmares had always prevented her from ever getting a full nights sleep. On most occasions, she would wake around 1 or 2 am, screaming with tears running down her face and breathing heavily, and be unable to get back to sleep. She would spend the rest of the darkness either catching up on paperwork and such, or in the refresher throwing up what little food she had had time to eat the previous day. Neither were preferable, but she always hated feeling so sick and helpless, wishing that Gabriel was there to hold her hair back as she continued to gag over the toilet rim.

“It’s fine Kit Kat, it was pretty torn and battered anyway.”

She felt her eyelids drooping, and for the first time in months she slept the whole night, no nightmares in sight, reunited with the man she loved.


End file.
